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Liverpool 6 Sparta Prague 1 (Mar 14 2024)

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I don’t think I’ve ever felt uncomfortable about us battering a team before but when the fourth goal went in and we hadn’t even reached the 15 minute mark, I was squirming a little bit. It just felt awkward. Like that video when Michael Owen was blasting volleys past a 12 year old keeper.

 

I felt a bit sorry for Sparta but I was also annoyed with them too. It’s hard enough playing against us without doing the stupid shit they kept doing. It was the same last week too. How many of the goals we scored over both legs came from us winning the ball from them when they tried to play out from the back? At least four, probably more. Yet they kept doing it and we kept punishing them. It was uncomfortable and if we’d continued to play at full intensity we might have scored 20. I’m not even joking.

 

Of course we were never going to do that because it would have been stupid. After that blistering start we dropped down to third gear and stayed there. Except Harvey, who came on at half time as was in sixth gear for the entire second half while everyone else was cruising along.

 

I’m not going to say we shouldn’t be in the Europa League as we’re there for a reason, but it’s almost unfair to the other teams in it because we’re a Champions League calibre team and if we were in that competition we’d have a great chance of winning it. At this time of year we’re usually playing Porto, Barcelona, Inter etc so teams like Sparta are always going to be overmatched, especially when Klopp is putting out such strong line ups.

 

In an ideal world I think most fans would have wanted every first teamer rested for this, but it just doesn’t work like that as managers tend to not operate that way. Klopp certainly doesn’t. There have been times when I think that’s cost us needlessly (Jota a couple o years ago in a dead rubber, Konate last week) but when I saw the line up I didn’t see too many surprises.

 

I actually think given the scoreline from the first leg, Klopp was able to treat this almost like a kind of 11v 11 training match. We didn’t need to be flat out but it was a good session and an ideal tune up for the weekend. Players who needed a rest got it, players who needed minutes got them, everyone played well and the attacking five all got goals. Just what we needed.

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Daisy

Didn't listen to all of this but I don't think I've heard it be discussed yet how much better we look without trent and the inverted right formation 

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Mudface
2 minutes ago, Daisy said:

Didn't listen to all of this but I don't think I've heard it be discussed yet how much better we look without trent and the inverted right formation 

 

Bradley was wandering infield quite a bit during the game, so it wasn't that much different although he did pop up on the wing more often than Trent seems to.

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deiseach
On 07/12/2017 at 16:24, Josef Svejk said:

You know, I really enjoyed the enthusiasm of that article and know you're absolutely right to be so enthusiastic. We're just a brilliant attacking team.

 

But I look at the score again and think, from the vantage point of my 40s, that the game reflects the shitness of football.

 

Is it not a peculiar kind of arrogance that makes us feel good about tanking Slovenian and Russian teams? Without a single local player in the team?

 

Don't get me wrong. Fantastic to watch. And yet I miss the days where a draw in Greece was a serious, hard-earned achievement. Or a Scottish or Belgian team might win a European competition.

 

An evergreen post on the subject of whaling on teams whose resources are a fraction of the resources available to the likes of Liverpool.

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Mathewbet1

Always amazes me how mcmanaman has made a career as a ‘top tier’ pundit and co commentator. If he’s annoying  to liverpool fans then it must even worse for rival fans, hes literally got nothing going for him, shit fake pseudo posh scouse accent, annoying as fuck, no insight and always states the obvious.

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Supremolad
19 hours ago, Daisy said:

Didn't listen to all of this but I don't think I've heard it be discussed yet how much better we look without trent and the inverted right formation 

Inverting the full back has continued in almost every Liverpool game since Trent's injury. Gomez or Bradley have often been drifting to the midfield areas in all those games. Not sure how you've failed to notice it. Confirmation bias or wilful ignorance, possibly?

 

In fact there is an in depth analysis video which praised Gomez inverting to midfield as the reason we gained control from City after our shaky start last Sunday. Just proves what some of us said earlier in the season. The new formation wasnt the problem. It was getting us good results but the performances were not consistently great at that time simply bcos some of our players were getting used to it.

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